Celebrities often take stage names to replace the names they were born with. Joaquin Phoenix, for example, is really called Joaquin Bottom. You can easily understand why he wanted to change that! More often than not, though, they take on another name to avoid confusion with a similarly named person.
Choosing a name because you have to for professional reasons is one thing. Inflicting an unusual name on an innocent new-born baby is quite another. Despite that, many of the rich and famous come up with names for their offspring which really blow our minds. Where do they come from?
Who seemed to come up with a name for their baby after looking at a compass? Who decided that weights and measurements also made great names? Which celebrity has four different children in our list, all of whom have crazy and ridiculous names? Read on and find out for yourself!
We're starting strong with this list. Audio Science Clayton sounds like a brand of speakers or headphones, but it's actually the real name of a living, breathing sixteen-year-old boy. Clayton is the son of actress Shannyn Sossamon and author Dallas Clayton, and was their first-born child. Maybe they wanted to start their family off with a big statement about originality.
Sossamon's relationship with the elder Clayton didn't last, and by 2012 Sossamon was in a different relationship and gave birth to a second son. This time, the boy was given the perfectly-normal name of 'Mortimer.' We don't know what Audio Science did to deserve his name, or how he feels about being branded in such a fashion. What we do expect is that he'll be working on getting his name changed as soon as possible when he eventually turns 18.
We can just about get on board with the name 'Moxie.' It's unusual, but it isn't absurd. Poor Moxie's middle name, however, is the sort of thing that she'll never own up to unless forced to by someone inspecting her official documentation. 'CrimeFighter'. Was this an aspiration about her future profession from her parents? Were they hoping that she'd grow up to be Batgirl?
Having an unconventional name is often the product of having unconventional parents, and that's definitely the case for this thirteen-year-old. As her surname suggests, her father is the legendary magician Penn Jillette of 'Penn and Teller' fame. We bet her mother Emily Zolten sometimes wishes she'd decided to have children with Teller instead. He famously doesn't talk, and so she'd have been left in peace to come up with a sensible name.
What is it with celebrities choosing names for their children that seem to be related to a profession? And why is it, given that most of them are actors, do none of them name their children 'actor' or 'performer'? Are they trying to tell us something? Fifteen-year-old Pilot Inspektor Lee is the son of eccentric actor Jason Lee and his former partner, actress Beth Riesgraf. Lee once explained the reasoning behind the spectacular name, and it's not a kind one.
The rock band 'Granddaddy' are one of Lee's favorites, with their song 'He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot' his pick of their catalog. He liked the band so much that he took 'Pilot' for his son's name, even though the song explicitly refers to him as being 'simple and dumb.' At fifteen, Pilot has surely worked this out by now and had stern words with his father.
Unusual behavior in the Jackson family? Well, who's ever going to believe that? Michael may have got all the headlines about his naming strategy for his children, given that for a long time people thought 'Blanket' was his son's real name, but his brother Jermaine has some 'off the wall' naming strategies too (if you'll excuse the pun).
Jermaine Jackson has a grand total of seven children, all of whom have reasonably conventional names other than Jermajesty. To be fair, though, Jermajesty came from quite an unusual relationship. His mother, Alejandra Genevieve Oaziaza, was in a relationship with Jackson's younger brother Randy (and had children with him) when she left him for Jermaine. Was Jermaine rubbing it in his brother's face when he gave the resultant offspring a name that implied royal status? We bet Thanksgiving at the Jackson household is a real hoot.
Five-year-old North West is one of the most famous of all the celebrity children on this list. That's partly because she was born into a haze of publicity in the semi-recent past, and partly because she's the daughter of one of the best-known and most polarizing celebrity power couples on the face of the planet - Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.
West has been one of the most successful and inventive rappers of the past two decades, although his more recent erratic behavior has seen him spend time in rehab. Kardashian, from her rich and wealthy background, is a reality television star who did a lot to further the idea of being famous purely for being famous. Love them or hate them, they make a lot of money. They should probably have done better than naming their child after a basic direction, though.
We can't help but feel that fifteen-year-old Pirate Houseman Davis should be arranging a business meeting with Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette and Pilot Inspektor Lee to thrash out ideas for the kind of company they could open. With names like those, it would be a shame not to work together. Pirate Howsmon Davis - and the middle name is 'Howsmon' and not 'Houseman' as we've seen incorrectly reported elsewhere - is the second son of legendary nu-metal frontman Jon Davis from the band 'KoRn.'
Of all the various types of celebrity out there, rock stars probably have the strongest tradition for giving unusual names to their children, and Davis certainly didn't let the side down with Pirate. It is something of a departure from the name of his first son (Nathan), but perhaps that's because the two have different mothers.
Moon Unit Zappa is another of the fairly well-known celebrity kids with strange names. There's nothing conventional whatsoever about the life of her father Frank Zappa, an experimental musician and artist who shocked and delighted audience throughout much of the 1970s and 80s. Her mother Gail wouldn't have been much of a leveling influence on Frank's quirky behavior either - by her own admission, she met Frank as a groupie and eventually fell in love with him.
Some celebrity children - Zowie Bowie, for example- change their name to something more conventional when they get a little older. Moon Unit has stuck with hers and has worked as a musician, actress, and writer over the course of her life. Born in the 1960s, she's now 51 years old and has passed on the family tradition of offbeat names to her daughter Mathilda Plum.
In some cases, what makes a celebrity child's name 'crazy' is a singular name that's so absurd and so unusual that you can't help but stare at it. In the case of the exhaustively-named Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence Geldof, you just get run over by its persistence. None of the individual names are all that staggering, but as a combination, it's a knockout.
Tiger Lily (we'll call her because that's the name she's chosen for herself) is the only child of rock musician and INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, who passed away in 1997, barely a year after she was born. Tragically her mother, television presenter Paula Yates, also passed away three years later. That left her in the care of musician Bob Geldof, Yates' former husband and father to her previous three children. Perhaps understandably the 22-year-old has thus far chosen to live a quiet life, but there are recent rumors she's moved to LA to get involved in acting.
'Mellencamp' is a pretty out-there surname to begin with, but if both your parents already have it then you may need a little something extra to make yourself stand out. We wonder if 24-year-old Speck Wildhorse Mellencamp thanks his parents John and Elaine for going so far in pursuit of originality?
His father has been known to experiment with his own name, so it's no shock that he also took an unorthodox approach to naming his son - we may know him as 'John Mellencamp' now, but for much of his early music career he was 'Johnny Cougar.' Adding 'wild horse' to his son's name might have been something of a misstep; young Speck has certainly behaved like one in his formative years, running into repeated difficulties with the police. His most recent booking, for drunken and disorderly conduct in 2018, saw him sentenced to twenty-five hours of community service.
We make our second visit to the weird and not-always wonderful world of the Geldof family. Fifi Trixibelle is the eldest daughter of Bob Geldof and Paula Yates, born in 1983 and starting a tradition of bizarre names in the family that would persist for many years. She's also the quietest of the family, having never shown any interest in fame.
While 'Fifi' is a name more commonly given to a dog than a human, it is still reasonably popular in France, so we can agree with it. 'Trixibelle' is a name straight from the Disney school of princesses, though, and was apparently given purely because her mother 'wanted a belle in the family.' Who can argue with logic like that? Fifi stays away from the glare of the camera whenever possible; working a regular 9-5 job in the PR industry and raising her family with her sculptor husband.
Blue Ivy Carter works very well as the name of a high-end restaurant. We could also see it as a very exclusive nightclub somewhere like London or New York. At a push, it could be a fashion range (and we won't rule out the chances of that actually happening one day). For now, though, it's the real name of a seven-year-old girl. We'd never criticize her name to her face though; she's the child of a marriage so significant that some people believe they run the Hollywood Illuminati.
If you're unfamiliar with her, Carter is the progeny of 'Destiny's Child' singer and movie star Beyoncé Knowles and her rap legend husband, Jay-Z. That's about as famous as famous gets. We don't think the name is necessarily terrible - 'Ivy' is a recognized girl's name after all, and we have seen people called 'Blue' before - we've just never seen it used for a girl. Perhaps they were expecting a boy and then kept the name anyway?
This is a name that starts off OK and then gets worse as you move along it. Petal Rainbow Blossom Oliver is the daughter of British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and his wife, Juliette. If you think her name is bad, you should meet her siblings - Poppy Honey Rosie, Daisy Boo Pamela, Buddy Bear Maurice, and River Rocket Blue Dallas.
Petal is barely ten years old, and so it's unknown how she feels about her name just yet. It's quite a departure from the type of naming strategy that her father's parents went for, with 'Jamie Oliver' being about as normal as normal names get. Perhaps that's what inspired the much-admired cook to go with something as outlandish as possible when the time came for him to have children of his own. Or maybe he and his wife just really like flowers!
We appreciate that we've only just mentioned this young man, but there's no way you thought were going to list off all those names once and not revisit them, did you? If Petal Blossom Rainbow is worthy of inclusion in this list, then so is her little brother Buddy Bear Maurice. While Petal's name gets a little stranger as you read it along, Buddy's goes in the opposite direction, with 'Maurice' being a solid and normal name to round it off.
Buddy is eight years old at present; and while 'Buddy Bear' is a cute name for a young boy, it's going to be less adorable as he enters his teenage years; especially when classmates at school find out about it and tease him relentlessly. We think he may eventually settle on 'Maurice.' 'Buddy' might work for an American, but the Oliver family are British.
We're back in the realm of very-well-known ridiculous baby names now. Can you believe that little Apple Martin is already fourteen years old? It seems like only yesterday she was born to her parents, rock star Chris Martin from 'Coldplay' and A-Lister actress Gwyneth Paltrow. It also seems like only yesterday that we were reading about her name in the newspapers and wondering what strange force had possessed the pair to give their daughter such a weird name.
There are plenty of fruits which are accepted and established as good names for girls. 'Apple' is not one of them. When anyone says 'apple' we're as likely to think of the tech giant as we are of the fruit, and Apple and their computers were as well known then as they are now. They may not yet have invented the iPad, but they'd created the iPod, and the mp3 players were everywhere. That made the name come across as a sponsorship deal, even though it wasn't.
Look, we all love superhero movies. If we didn't, there wouldn't be a never-ending stream of them at the cinemas, and Marvel wouldn't have what feels like four hundred of them currently in pre-production. Almost everybody knows who Superman is, and almost everybody likes the story. That doesn't mean there's a good reason to go and name your child after the character's real name.
Kal-El Coppola Cage is currently thirteen years old, and in for a disappointment when he finds out he'll never be able to fly and isn't allergic to kryptonite. He's the son of actor Nicholas Cage and waitress Alice Kim. There's an extra conceit to his name as well; he's been given the surname 'Cage' despite it not being part of his father's real name. Nicholas is, and always has been, Nicholas Kim Coppola. He's part of the famous Coppola showbiz family.
We have bad news for anyone who was hoping that Frank Zappa and his wife Gail would calm down after naming their first-born daughter Moon Unit. They didn't. Two years after Moon Unit was born the Zappa family welcomed their first baby boy, Dweezil. The hospital actually tried to save him from this fate; they refused to register 'Dweezil' as his name, and so Frank was forced to name him Ian Donald Calvin instead, but his name was later re-registered.
There's an interesting reasoning behind the name - 'Dweezil' was the nickname that Frank gave to one of his wife's toes because it was unusually pink and curly. That's sort of cute, but we still don't think that's good cause to give the name to a child. The man himself doesn't mind though - he's in his late forties now, and tours with a band playing his father's music.
We've already paid one visit to the Davis household (whom you'll remember for the striking name 'Pirate Howsmon Davis' earlier on), and now we're back again for his younger brother, eleven-year-old Zeppelin Howsmon Davis. The 'Howsmon' element of the name isn't a strange naming tradition, by the way - it's part of father Jonathan Davis' own name, and so passes on to his children.
We don't have to use much imagination to work out where Davis got the inspiration for this name from, and we don't think it was giant airships. 'KoRn' is a hard rock band, and one of many who would have grown up listening to the music of British heavy metal legends 'Led Zeppelin.' We think that's the most likely source, although we're prepared to be wrong. Maybe Davis really is a huge admirer of huge inflatable aviation vehicles after all.
All of us have favorite clothes. Most of us even have favorite styles of clothing, and that could conceivably extend to a preferred texture or material. We've never been so enthusiastic about a pair of jeans that we've named our children after them, though. Just as we don't expect to see leather, PVC or corduroy as a first name, we don't expect to see denim either, but who are we to argue with the magnificence of Toni Braxton? If she wants to call her son Denim Cole Braxton-Lewis, that's what she's going to do!
The young man is now all grown up, having turned eighteen this year, and will soon be embarking on a career of his own. With his music legend mother, and father Keri Lewis who performed in the band 'Mint Condition' it wouldn't be a surprise to see him become a recording artist. With a name like this though, maybe fashion designer would be more appropriate.
Being the Godfather of Soul is enough to cleanse you of a multitude of sins, but not all of them. First-ballot music Hall-of-Famer James Brown led a life that was as wild and colorful off the stage as it was on it, with multiple quarrels with the law, with affairs and with paternity responsibilities. Nobody - not even Brown, ever seemed to know how many children he was actually responsible for.
Yamma Noyola Brown Lumar is definitely his though; she was one of two daughters born to him during his 1970s marriage to Deidre Jenkins. The marriage wasn't a happy one and likely put Yamma off the idea of trying to become famous herself, even if she did have a name that would stand out anywhere in the world. She's not done badly for herself though - she devoted herself to her studies and is now a doctor.
'Lyric Angel' should be the name of a website that you can look up to find out the words to your favorite musician's latest tracks. It could also be a nickname given to someone who's exceptionally good with the written word. When you give that name to someone who's just been born, you're putting a lot of pressure on them when it comes to their future career choices.
The combination of 'lyric' and 'angel' wasn't necessarily a deliberate choice - his father is former boyband singer Ashley Parker Angel who was once in O-Town - but flipping 'Parker' and 'Angel' around suggests there was some intent there on some level between himself and his then-partner, model and actress Tiffany Lynn. Lyric is an aspiring nineteen-year-old actor who has worked on shows like 'American Horror Story.'
Why choose one unusual name when you could have two? Princess Tiaamii Crystal Esther Andre has as exotic a name as you could ever hope for. There's a definite Disney feeling to it, which would be entirely in keeping with the Disney-style relationship of her parents, former glamour model Katie Price and pop star Peter Andre.
The star couple, who are no longer together, aren't well-known to American audiences but were rarely out of the British tabloids at the peak of their fame. Price was once known as 'Jordan' and was a popular centerfold in many glossy men's magazines, while Andre was arguably more famous for his six-pack than his voice. Princess is eleven years old now and starting to find her own way in the world; a route which may involve looking after her troubled mother. She recently informed Price that she doesn't like her name. We're not surprised.
One of the names that's been assigned to this ten-year-old boy is a place. The other is one of the most famous Disney characters of all time. David and Victoria Beckham may have started the trend of naming a child after where it was conceived when they welcomed Brooklyn Beckham into the world - we wonder if Bronx Mowgli Wentz was named for the same reason?
Bronx, who may or may not actually go by 'Mowgli' depending on who you believe, is the son of 'Fall Out Boy' rocker Pete Wentz and pop star Ashlee Simpson. We're not convinced that naming your child after a boy who grew up feral and had to be raised by animals is the best statement of intent about your parenting abilities. In their defense, they were very young when they had him, and may still have been watching 'Jungle Book' themselves.
How closely have you been paying attention to this list so far? If you have, you'll remember this name from a little earlier on, and so you'll know that this is the third entry for celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and his wife, Juliette. All of their children have potential for entry onto this list, and so you'll have to stay tuned to see if they all make it.
They got so close to coming up with a reasonable name for their fifteen-year-old daughter. 'Daisy' and 'Pamela' are both lovely names that wouldn't raise eyebrows anywhere. 'Boo,' on the other hand, is a bit of a head-scratcher. Maybe she was an unexpected pregnancy, and she took her parents by surprise? Maybe she was so pale when she was born that she looked a little ghostly? There has to be some logic here somewhere!
We've now had a few families making repeat visits to our list, and we can add Tony Braxton and Keri Lewis to that collection as well. Their first child was named after, presumably, their favorite type of fabric. Their second could have taken his name from a few different sources. Is diesel their preferred type of gas? Do they love the cinematic work of Vin Diesel? Maybe it's a reference to the fashion label, which would give both of their children a clothing theme?
Whatever the reason, there would still have to be a further explanation for switching the 's' in the middle of the word to a 'z.' It's bad enough to give your child a ridiculous name; it's almost inexcusable to do so in an illiterate manner. Diezel is now fifteen years old, and may be debating whether he'd prefer his friends just to call him 'Ky.'
There are some geographical locations which make for great names. Paris is a classic example. We've seen Milan enough times to accept it as being reasonably normal. We've already talked about Brooklyn, and there are a few people out there walking around with names like India, Sienna, and Roma. Alabama Gypsy Rose Jennings is the only 'Alabama' we've ever become aware of.
Eleven-year-old Alabama is the daughter of 'Desperate Housewives' actress Drea de Matteo and her country music star ex-husband Waylon Jennings. It may be him who we have to thank for his daughter's name; he is famously pro-southern in his musical and has the somewhat-unconventional nickname of 'Shooter,' so walking around being called by a strange title is nothing new to him. Alabama is only eleven now, but when she's old enough to buy a house, we hope she calls it 'Sweet Home.'
Chalk up a record-breaking fourth entry for the Oliver family. Let's take a moment to stand back and applaud their commitment to coming up with crazy, ridiculous names for their children! At least none of Jamie and Juliette's children would have felt bullied or marginalized by their name when they were growing up; having a terrible name was something they all had in common.
As we've mentioned before, Poppy Honey Rosie Oliver's father is a chef. We wonder if he was looking in his kitchen for inspiration when it came to finding a name for his now-sixteen-year-old daughter? Poppies, honey, and roses are all things you can cook with if you know what you're doing, and he definitely does. We think that this is the least out-there name of all the Oliver children, but it would still stand out a mile on the average school roll-call.
If you see 'Poet Sienna Rose Goldberg' written down, you assume that you're about to read about a poet named Sienna Rose Goldberg. That's likely to be an issue that follows this thirteen-year-old around for her whole life, and we'd put money on her choosing to go by 'Sienna' as soon as she's old enough to express a preference.
Poet is the daughter of the conventionally-named film and television producer Jason Goldberg, and the very-unconventionally-named actress and director Soleil Moon Frye. No prizes for guessing whose idea it was to go for the off-menu approach when the time arrived to give their daughter a name. The couple has other children named 'Lyric' and 'Story,' so they really do like the literary theme for their family. They'll be so disappointed if none of them grow up showing any interest in the arts. Can you imagine being called 'Poet' and working in a bank?
We're back with place names again, and we have an entry that beats 'Alabama' in the 'just plain weird' stakes. Egypt Daoud Dean was born in 2010 as the first son of R & B and soul singer Alicia Keys and her husband, record producer and rapper Kasseem Dean. You probably know Dean better by his stage name; Swizz Beatz. When you know that's what he calls himself, the name assigned to his son makes a lot more sense.
Egypt has a younger brother who also has an off-kilter name; Genesis Ali Dean. When you put the two together, you get the hints of a Biblical theme when it comes to naming their children, and if that's true, then we shouldn't mock them for their religious convictions. We think there's a lot to be said for something more traditional like 'Adam' or 'Joseph,' though.
We're more than half way through our list now, and we've seen children named after all manner of things from fabrics to places to professions. Now, thanks to Banjo Patrick Taylor, we have our first musical instrument. The fifteen-year-old is the child of Australian actress and director Rachel Griffiths and her husband, famous Australian painter Andrew Taylor. There's no musicality in the family that we're aware of, so we don't know where 'Banjo' came from.
The celebrity couple have two other children who have relatively normal names, but Banjo was the first, so we have to assume there was a specific reason for it. Maybe there was a banjo playing when he was conceived, or when he was born. Maybe they just really like banjo music. If that's the case, the young man should be glad that he didn't end up with a name like 'Drum' or 'Glockenspiel.'
'Bear blue' conjures up a mental picture of a bear that has emotional issues, and once you've got that idea in your head, it's impossible to think of poor seven-year-old Bear Blu Jarecki any other way. Having an unusual name is just part of having an unconventional life for this kid - when he was only one year old, his mother Alicia Silverstone was seen in public chewing food for him and then feeding it to him from his own mouth, as if he were a bird. We're sure he'll enjoy reviewing that footage when he's older.
When Bear was growing up and sleeping in his parents' bed, he probably had to compete for space with a bulldog. His father Christopher Jarecki, a former punk musician, was known for taking his beloved pet with him even after he married Silverstone. Given that fact, it's a wonder this child was ever conceived at all!
It's the combination of words here that we have to take issue with. 'Summer' is a beautiful name. 'Rain' can work in the right circumstances. 'Summer rain' isn't something that anyone looks forward to. It ruins a perfectly good day and spoils the sunshine. Why would you name your daughter after something that only makes people sad?
That's a question that would have to be asked of singing diva Christina Aguilera and her fiancé Matthew Rutler. The two met on the set of the movie 'Burlesque' and fell in love quickly, with Summer being born in 2014. This was probably one of the happiest times in Aguilera's life, so why the somber name? Perhaps, like all artists, there's a constant sliver of sadness in her soul. Or perhaps she thought the name sounded very pretty and didn't consider the full connotations of it.
'Seven Sirius Benjamin' is a name that sounds like a codeword. Is the 'Seven' part a reference to the seven deadly sins? Lucky number seven? How about 'Sirius' - is that telling us that the 21-year-old's parents were big fans of the Harry Potter series, or that they're keen stargazers? Maybe there's a math equation going on here - the 'Seven' may somehow factor into his father's stage name - his father being Andre Benjamin, better known to us all as Andre 3000 from the band 'Outkast.'
Benjamin's mother comes from the world of music as well - she's highly-respected R&B and soul singer Erykah Badu. Despite the fact that he's now come of age, not much is known about Benjamin or what he's choosing to do with his life. He may be another who's trying to live quietly away from the cameras. With that name, we have to wish him luck.
Most people are familiar with Rumer Willis. She's an actress in her own right (appearing regularly on 'Empire') and she was a winner on the popular TV show 'Dancing with the Stars.' The 30-year-old is also the daughter of Hollywood royalty, with her parents being Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. She's so well-known and well-liked that it's sometimes easy to forget that she has an absurd name.
The name must have been difficult in Hollywood gossip circles when she was born as well, with conversations like 'Hey, did you hear Demi and Bruce had a kid?' 'Rumer?' 'No, it really happened!' It's no surprise that for her early film appearances, the aspiring star chose to be credited as 'Willa Glen.' She must eventually have grown to love her weird name over time, and she's made a success out of it. At least a producer or director will never forget her name after they've seen her once.
Earlier on, we had strong words about Nicholas Cage choosing to name his son 'Kal-El' after Superman. We have slightly more sympathy for Kevin Smith and his wife Jennifer Schwalbach Smith when it comes to the name of their nineteen-year-old daughter Harley Quinn Smith. She may also be named after a comic book character, but far few people were as familiar with Harley Quinn back then as they are now. Margot Robbie's iconic portrayal of the character in 'Suicide Squad' probably wasn't celebrated in the Smith household.
Anybody who knows anything about Smith knows that he's a big comic book fan, and has taken influences from comic books for many of his popular films. His actress wife clearly indulges in the passion as well. As for Harley Quinn herself, she's embraced her name. She's appeared in a few of her father's films, but her true passion appears to be music. She's currently the singer and bass player of the soft punk band 'The Tenth.'
Peaches Geldof, born in 1989, is the third of the Geldof children to enter our list. She was arguably the most famous of all the children of Bob Geldof and Paula Yates, appearing as a television host, a reality TV star and occasional musician. She was a well-known face in British tabloids from the age of fifteen onwards, dividing audiences with her often controversial and outspoken views, as well as her tearaway behavior.
Her name may be strange, but it's also undeniably cute. Who doesn't like peaches? We're still not sure it's a name we'd ever give to one of our own children, but it's inoffensive. Sadly, the story of Peaches Geldof ended tragically in 2014 when she died of an accidental heroin overdose - the same fate that had befallen her mother many years earlier.
Right on the heels of her sister comes Pixie Geldof, meaning that the children of Paula Yates are now tied with the family of Jamie Oliver on four entries each. By comparison to the raucous Peaches, Pixie Geldof has led a more demure and reserved life. That doesn't mean she hasn't been active though; the 28-year-old is a model, singer, and activist, often lending her hand to environmental causes. She has a particular affinity for sharks.
As with Peaches, 'Pixie' isn't too out-there as a name (singer Pixie Lott would agree with that), but it's still something we'd expect to hear as a nickname more often than as a real name. Pixies are small and cute - appropriate for a child when it's very small but less so as they get older. To make things worse, her actual birth name was even worse - she's since dropped it, but she was once 'Little Pixie Geldof'!
When you look at this name written down, you don't get the full effect of it. You have to say it out loud to understand what parents Ving Rhames and Deborah Reed were aiming for. Get it yet? 'Rainbow Rhames.' That's clever and witty for five minutes, but probably not when you have to put up with it for your whole life. Reign Beau Rhames is nineteen years old, and we bet she's already heard every joke based on her name imaginable.
Rhames Sr. is a well-known Hollywood actor who's probably best known to a generation as Marsellus Wallace from Tarantino's 'Pulp Fiction,' and his daughter was born the same year he married his second wife, Reed. Maybe he considered himself blessed with his new marriage, and so referenced a rainbow because they're traditionally associated with luck. In any event, the young woman has decided to roll with her moniker, using it as both an Instagram and Twitter handle.
Is this a name? It sounds like a law firm or a list of performers across the top of a movie poster. We can only assume that reality TV star David 'Puck' Rainey and his wife Betty wanted to pay tribute to a few of their heroes when they chose three forenames for their son, but the net result is that they've given their sixteen-year-old a collection of three famous names which are difficult to shorten or hide from. At a pinch, we suspect he'd choose to go with 'Che.' He has to be the only person in the world with the first name 'Bogart.'
Things haven't been great for 'Puck' in recent years, with numerous brushes with the law and a car crash that left the younger Rainey with minor injuries, although he made a full recovery. We hope that he'll be learning from his father's lessons, and setting himself up to spend a life staying on the straight and narrow.
We've come back around to celebrity children with names that are actually jobs, and we have American filmmaker Robert Rodriguez and his film-producing ex-wife Elizabeth Avellan to thank for it! Racer Rodriguez is twenty-one years old now, but despite his name, he hasn't shown any interest in becoming a professional athlete or a racing car driver. In fact, at a very early age, he showed an aptitude for following his father into the world of telling stories.
The young Rodriguez was only seven years old when he told his father a story that he'd created in his own imagination. His father quickly realized that the boy had a natural gift, and started making notes. The end result of the story was the movie 'The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl,' which was a surprise box office hit in 2005 and made $39m in box office receipts. Racer was rewarded with a screenwriting credit and, presumably, a share of the royalties when he's a little older.
OK, we admit it, we were holding out on you. When we were talking about Racer Rodriguez, we should have mentioned that he has an older brother with an equally velocity-themed name; Rocket Valentin Rodriguez. Having one child named after the concept of speed could just be a quirky name. When it happens twice, there's something going on.
What are Robert Rodriguez and his wife trying to tell us with their naming strategies? Were they in a hurry to have children? Are they going to grow up very quickly? Who knows? 'Rocket Valentin' sort of implies that the 23-year-old is a man who falls in love quickly, which is something we doubt he'd want to advertise to potential partners. Rocket, unlike his brother, doesn't have any movie making credits just yet. He still has time on his side though, so don't rule it out.
The primary role of any parent is to ensure that a child gets a good grounding in life, respects the people around them and stays away from a life of crime. With that in mind, we don't think that 'bandit' is the best aspirational way to refer to a new born baby. That's the route that Gerard Way and Lyn-Z decided to take with their nine-year-old daughter, though, and so we're just going to chalk it up to another case of rock stars doing strange things when they have children.
Way Sr. was the frontman of emo-rock superstars 'My Chemical Romance,' who were an iconic band for alternative youths, and so his choice of a very alternative name for his daughter is probably true to form. Lyn-Z also comes from the alternative world, best known as the bass player of 'Mindless Self Indulgence' - a term that could be used to describe the process by which they arrived at naming their child.
It's a late second entry on the list for Hollywood A-Listers Bruce Willis and Demi Moore with their second daughter, Scout LaRue Willis! Scouting is an activity usually associated with young boys in Britain, or a specific role in either talent-spotting or the military. Perhaps it was actually advice for future casting agents? People who wanted to fill a role in a movie could have been advised 'scout LaRue Willis, she's great!'
Scout isn't as well-known as her sister, but she still has plenty of credits to her name on IMDB, perhaps most notably for her multiple appearances on 'Entertainment Tonight' during the past few years. Instead of being an actress, she's better known to the public for simply being herself - bizarre name and all. 'La Rue' translates from French as 'the road,' so her name could actually be construed as advice to drivers.
If Kanye West and Kim Kardashian learned anything from the criticism they received for calling their first child North West, it was that choosing unusual names guarantees plenty of publicity. They were in the news again when their son Saint West was born in 2015. As names that make grand proclamations go, you can't go much further than giving a child one which suggests that they've been beatified by the Pope.
There have been plenty of column inches written about the ego of this youngster's parents, and so it wouldn't be a surprise if using 'Saint' as a name was a statement on how the couple view both themselves and their family, but if we chose to be kind we could look at it as a declaration of hope. Perhaps they just want to encourage their baby to live the most pure and sinless life possible. Given the profession he's growing up in and the people he'll be around, that would be quite an achievement.
The avian world is full of big, proud and beautiful birds. Robin is a great name to give to a little girl, for example - or to Batman's best friend! A sparrow, on the other hand, is tiny and feeble. As we've seen with other names on this list, 'small and cute' works when a baby is very young. It's less suitable when they become a full-grown adult.
Sparrow James Midnight Madden won't have to worry about that for a little while yet. Born to 'Good Charlotte' rock star Joel Madden and reality television favorite Nicole Richie in late 2009, he's not yet even ten years old. He'll be surrounded by fame in every direction as he grows; his uncle is married to Cameron Diaz, and his grandfather is singing legend Lionel Richie. This is one little sparrow who's likely to spread his wings wide.
Camera Ashe was born to one of the greatest tennis players of all time in Arthur Ashe, but it was actually her mother's profession which gave her the name she's had to live with. Jeanne Moutoussamy, who married Ashe in 1977, was a noted and popular photographer. We don't doubt that she loves her job, but that doesn't excuse naming a daughter after an inanimate object!
'Camera' isn't actually the name that the 33-year-old was born with. Her mother and father adopted her in 1986. Nobody - probably including her - knows what her birth name was, but it wouldn't be outrageous to suggest that it was something a little more conventional than 'Camera.' We suppose it could have been worse, though; she could have been named 'photo,' 'film' or 'lens.' If she'd been born into a different era, she might even have been branded as 'Instagram'!
At some point, we think that either T-Pain or Amber Najm should come clean and admit that they accidentally fell on the keyboard when they were entering a name for their nine-year-old son. We assume that's what happened, because we're finding the name difficult to read, let alone to pronounce.
You have to take a closer look at the names of the other children in the T-Pain-Najm household to make any sense of it; there are three of them in total, and they all have names which are connected to music; all of which are spelled incorrectly. 'Lyriq' is one of them, and 'Muziq' is another. Using them as a reference point, we think that 'Kaydnz Kodah' is actually 'cadence' and 'coda,' which are still musical references but slightly less obvious ones. On reflection that's actually quite clever - but it's never a good thing to have to explain how to both spell and pronounce your name when you meet people.
Moroccan Scott Cannon is not Moroccan, as the seven-year-old will likely have to explain to people for the rest of his life. He's the son of rapper and comedian Nick Cannon and the world-famous singing diva Mariah Carey, and has a twin named Monroe. He probably envies his sister for her comparatively normal name.
Usually, there's a story behind a name that's so unusual, and there is in this case. It just isn't necessarily a good one. The child is called 'Moroccan' because the decor in the room in which Cannon proposed to Carey was Moroccan in theme. That isn't the strongest reasoning we've ever heard of, and we can't help but wonder if the same strategy would have been employed had the proposal happened in the kitchen, or in the bathroom. At least she hadn't decked her home out in a Venetian theme at the time, because that may have been even worse.
David Carradine lived an interesting life. Could he have been expecting to go to jail at around the time that Free Carradine was born? Was the child expected to become the poster boy for a campaign to secure the release of his famous father? That might not have been as outlandish an idea as it sounds - in 1974, a mere two years after Free was born, his father was arrested for burglary. We'd say that his actress mother Barbara Hershey should have been a better influence, but we're talking about someone who one changed her surname to 'Seagull' after one of the birds died on the set of a movie she was making, so maybe not.
Almost all of the children we've mentioned so far on the list have chosen to accept the name they were given and live with it, but 'Free' didn't. At the age of only nine, he demanded to be known as 'Tom' instead. Good on you, kid.
This name is so pretentious that we bet even Kanye West and Kim Kardashian wish they'd thought of it. Instead of going to the Wests, though, Chosen Sebastian Newton was born to NFL superstar Cam Newton and his girlfriend Kia Proctor during 2016; the couple's first son.
If the three-year-old doesn't go into religion, we're not sure what he's going to do with his life. We also don't know how his siblings feel about his name. The Newton family have had two children since Chosen was born; how are they going to feel about the apparently elevated status of their older brother? If he was the chosen one, what does that make them? We don't know their names - perhaps this crazy naming system also extended to them, and they have names like 'selected' and 'anointed'. Or perhaps we should stop giving the Newton family ideas.
Actor Rob Morrow named his daughter Tu when she was born in 2001, giving her the full name Tu Morrow. But apparently Tu isn't the only one in the family to have a unique first and last name that come together to form a word. "It's a tradition," said Morrow, whose wife is named Debbon Ayer. "She is debonaire!"
Rob Morrow is an American actor and director. He is known for his portrayal of Dr. Joel Fleischman on Northern Exposure, a role that garnered him three Golden Globe and two Emmy nominations for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series, and later for his role as FBI agent Don Eppes on Numb3rs. Debbon Ayer is an actress and producer, known for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Garden Stat and The Devil's Own.
